Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1887-07-21

Where are the promises of your young
days? Where are the aspirations, the de-
sires after higher life, the noble pur
poses with which my soul was filled? Dead
dead and buried beneath a crust of self |
ishness."
youthful follies," answered Jenifer; |
ssgone the way of all such early fancies.
Why do you prosecute me? Have 1 stolen,
Or murdered, or lived uncleanly? Have I
not kept to my work and done it thor
oughiy. distasteful as it is ?"
sIt is true,'' said the other, ''the COM
mandments you have not broken; but
where are the hearts you have helped to
bind up? How many have you helped by
your example? Rather, have you not by
daily carelessness. by dryness of spirit, by
perfunctory performance Of your duty,
quenched the light that was, aye, God
knows it was in me? And In doing so you
have wounded many another. There are
sinners who STAY the body, but you have
slain your own soul; and woe be to him
of when this can be said"
Jenifer laughed in scorn.
.When I was what you are, all this
would have had its terrors for me; now ]
[ know what you are, who think to scare
me thus-an illusion of the brain, dis
tarbance of the nervous system. Come
DAYLIGHT, and this will be as if it had
never BEEN"
But the other with the sad, youthful
eyes looked at him IL sorrow and said:
Gwen in your blindness you speak the
truth, for when you were as I am, ere
hoI cd Jnh
would have seen the precidice On which
you stand. Oh, brother of me, though
how degraded, give up your dreams of
slfish future; turn back while yet you
may; use the wealth that has CON to
you, not for yourself only, but for others;
redeem the time that is left to you, and
bring to happier second life the pro-
misses, the aspirations of your youth"
"Begonet" said enifer. "If not an IL
fusion, then you are an eccomplice in
some cons piracy to betray me in rash
vow. Did you ana the old man who is in
| his grave plan it between you and laugh
to think how yoH would scare your fool
| ish dupe9 Away from me and do not hope
| to work your wills. Ihave inherited, and I
will enioy!"
''Nay, them" said his double; ''see to
what an end yeur enjoyment shall bring
you. I, whom you have destroyed, am
| what you were; see now what you shall
| be-"
Then for one awful moment the parson
knew that net only he himself stood there,
with the spirit of his once pure, and
earnest-hearted youth beside him, but
third and dreadful shspe-himself as he
should be, If no hand of grace stayed his
| downward course.
| The lightning flash of awakened per-
ception showed him his ewn old age,
where that which he had called economy
had grown to avarice, where cailousness
had become crueity-discentent, envy
carelessness, impiety. He saw himself
degraded, me an, 'despicable, bad, without
affections, without tenderness, without
| hope; and as the horror Of it swept over
him with resistless force,Clement Jenifer
the icy crust Of years Of life for self
broken at last-feli apon his face,
with the .agonizsd cry Of the apostle of
CID:
1sWhe shall deliver me from this body
of deatk1?"
When he came to himself he was in the
quaint cid sitting room in his new home.
The fire had burned low, and only dImly
| illuminated the room; ,but as he gazed
! into the glowing embers a hitherto I'M
kindlea log leaPed into dane, and as it
| leaped and fickered the scroll which he
| had before remarked and failed to de-
cipher caught and threw back the light
and Mr.. ,Jenifer read in letters of gold
| the words:
! Nor deem the irrevoeable past
AS wholly wasted, wholly vain,
| IF, rising on its wrecks, az last,
TIE something nobler we attain
He ssnk on his knees and there, in con-
triton of spirit and anguish Of soul,
dedicated anew to his master the years
that shsuld be granted to him, the wealth
he had inherited himself, body, seal and
spirit forevermore.
People said afterward that prosperity
had been good for Mr.. -Jenifer, thatdt had
made him softer, more compassionate
more tender. He alone knew that the
vleion he had seen had come only Just IN
time to save hi&a from that utter ruin of
soul to which he was tending, and when
he thought as many a tia2e he did, of that
awful night he bowed his head in con trite
humility, and gave thanks for the wacn-
| ing that had been sent to him.